82 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



long time unwilling to pass me, because it must come 

 near to keep under the button-bushes. 



SORA ; CAROLINA RAIL 



Oct. 3, 1858. One brings me this morning a Carolina 

 rail alive, this year's bird evidently from its marks. He 

 saved it from a cat in the road near the Battle-Ground. 

 On being taken up, it pecked a little at first, but was 

 soon quiet. It staggers about as if weak on my window- 

 sill and pecks at the glass, or stands with its eyes shut, 

 half asleep, and its back feathers hunched up. Possibly 

 it is wounded. I suspect it may have been hatched here. 

 Its feet are large and spreading, qualifying it to run 

 on mud or pads. Its crown is black, but chin white, 

 and its back feathers are distinctly edged with white in 

 streaks. 



RAIL (unidentified) 



July 16, 1860. Standing amid the pipes of the Great 

 Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep., no doubt 

 from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her 

 young, who are meanwhile uttering a very faint, some- 

 what similar peep, which you would not hear if not very 

 much inclined to hear it, in the grass close around me. 

 Sometimes the old bird utters two short, sharp creaks. 

 I look sharp, but can see nothing of them. She sounds 

 now here, now there, within two or three rods of me, 

 incessantly running in the grass. I had already heard, 

 more distant, a more prolonged note from some water- 

 fowl, perhaps a plover, if not possibly a male rail, here- 

 abouts. 



